The top leaders of Sweden, Finland and NATO promised this Saturday (05.21.2022) to the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that Ankara will receive “security guarantees” if he lifts the veto he declared against the accession of the two Nordic countries to the Atlantic Alliance for understanding that they maintain links with groups considered by Turkey to be terrorist organizations.
Both the President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, as well as the Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, and the Secretary General of NATO, the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, agreed that they all take into account the “security concerns” of Turkey after the round of telephone conversations this day, which has not yielded concrete results, except that they will continue to talk.
“We all agree that the security concerns of all allies must be taken into account,” Stoltenberg posted on Twitter, describing Turkey as “a valuable ally” to whom he transferred the “importance of the ‘open door’ policy ‘ of NATO and the accession applications of Sweden and Finland in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.
Erdogan’s conditions
For his part, Erdogan published a statement stating that both countries must “clearly demonstrate” that they will show solidarity with Turkey on fundamental issues, especially the fight against terrorism, or else Ankara will not approach its request to join NATO positively. . The Turkish leader let Andersson know that Ankara sees the need for Sweden to break all ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Likewise, Erdogan asked Stockholm to “lift the restrictions” on arms exports decreed against Turkey in October 2019, after the Turkish military incursions in northern Syria and in Iraq against the PKK. To the President of Finland, meanwhile, he mentioned Turkey’s “natural right to expect respect and support in its legitimate struggle against threats to its security and its people.”
On Twitter, Niinistö wrote: “I stressed that as allies within NATO, Finland and Turkey would commit to each other’s security and their relations would be strengthened.” And he added: “Finland condemns terrorism in all its forms. The dialogue continues.” Turkey considers Finland and Sweden to be PKK sanctuaries, claims both Nordic countries reject.
Finland and Sweden applied this week to join the Atlantic Alliance encouraged by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but to approve it, the unanimous approval of the 30 member countries is needed.
DZC (EFE, AFP, Europa Press)